Pelikan tail

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This article is about the tail design for aircraft. For the bird, see Pelican.

The Pelikan tail is an experimental tail design for fighter jets. Originally conceived by Ralph Pelikan,^[1] who hired into McDonnell Aircraft, later worked for McDonnell Douglas and after another merger, retired from the Boeing. His design has not to date been incorporated into any publicly available jets. However, it has been considered or included in design specifications in the original Boeing X-32 fighter design. ^[2]

[edit] Advantages and disadvantages

The Pelikan design differs from the traditional elevator-and-rudder design in that it uses only two control surfaces in order to achieve control of pitch, yaw, and roll. When evaluated by Boeing engineers at October 1998, they found as advantage a greater pitch control at high angles of attack, and that two tails would have a lower radar signature than four.^[1]^[2] However, they also found that using two larger control surfaces instead of four, might actually make the plane end up heavier. The bigger hydraulic pumps and cylinders needed to operate the larger surfaces would add 800 or 900 pounds of weight to the design.^[1] This, and other factors made them use a four-post tail instead.^[1]

[edit] Tests by Virginia Tech students

Virginia Tech students built a Pelikan tail model and got positive results for its viability using a wind tunnel^[3]. The analysis by the students found several advantages like a lower vertical surface area, which aids in stealth; less drag due to skin friction; and a lower weight due to the need for two as opposed to the usual four hydraulic actuators.^[4]